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Writes Professor Laeed Zaghlami of the University of Algiers (Faculty of Media and Communication)
What is currently happening in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly in the Gaza Strip, is a war of extermination waged by the army of the Zionist entity against a defenceless people who are defending their stolen legitimate rights implicitly with international complicity and the blatant support of the West, which pretends to defend the principles of democracy, freedom of expression and human rights.
It has become clearer today than ever, through its shameful and despicable Western positions regarding what is happening in occupied Palestine, that these values are no more than illusions that Western civilization wants to promote on the basis that it is a harmonious and human civilization in order to camouflage and obscure the malicious and hidden intentions of a quasi-civilization that is beginning to disappear and retreat because of its inability to defend true and sincere human values End of the period of validity of the theory of the end of history.
The former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine wrote in his article, publicly admitting that Western values have lost their credibility and faith in the world and have not become the reference that the West sings about, because they carry within them indicators of their disappearance and obliteration, despite the media hype and propaganda and all the techniques of obfuscation and deception that are deployed, including all types and formats of media.
Democracy as advocated by the West has reached its sell-by date, despite the optimism of Francis Fukuyama in his theory of the end of history, which predicted the control and hegemony of Western democracy in all parts of the world. His statement has come to the end of his consumption and the rise of new powers is a clear signal that a multipolar world is taking part slowly but surely. The attempts of the West to obstruct it are helpless and hopeless and the equation is today between the West and the Rest of the World.
Illusory and Media democracy Today, the world is discovering the enormity, the scandal, and the hypocrisy of the West’s handling of the Palestinian question. This is not double standards as the world is accustomed to seeing it, but rather many and varied of standards. In the name of democracy, the West defends a Zionist entity that violates the most basic human rights and ignores all the international resolutions and regulations condemning its barbaric practices.
In this context, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin admits that Western democracy is only formal and illusory, but even more so, that it is only a media democracy, because it excels in manufacturing phrases and images, but cruelly lacks legitimacy, honesty, credibility, justice and freedom. ‘Non-governmental organisations’ or media lobbies?
The West fiercely defends freedom of expression, of opinion, and press, and has supported a number of ‘non-governmental’ organisations to guarantee this freedom, such as Reporters without Borders in France, the American Freedom House, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Press Institute in Vienna, the capital of Austria, and the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation and many others.
However, what is amazing is that these media lobbies have remained strangely silent and we have heard no condemnation of what is happening today in Gaza and other areas of the occupied Palestinian territories, including punishment and genocide, the murder of at least thirty-one martyrs of the pen and image.
A policy of selection and bias
These media lobbies are selective and biased when it comes to the interests and values of the West, and are quick to distort and insult countries that defend their principles and sovereignty. On more than one occasion, Reporters without Borders unfairly denounces the “serious violations” committed against the press and journalists, particularly in Algeria, for example, and ignores what is happening in other parts of the world.
Is this manifest bias, not the expression of a violation and an attack on freedom of expression and the media’s ability to convey the truth? But what is most questionable is the position of certain media figures in Algeria and in other countries where a number of their citizens and elites still express their sympathy to neo-colonialism values in their various forms and continue to trust these media lobbies and to digest their messages and ideas without shame or embarrassment.
Manufacturing and marketing concepts and theories and projecting them into reality
The West, particularly the United States of America, manufactures ideas and promotes concepts and theories that are prepared in laboratories injected into international academic, media, and diplomatic forums, and then projected into reality. Among the most important concepts that have been the subject of discussion, dialogue, and media coverage are the concepts of Arab Spring, soft power, creative chaos, the clash of civilizations, the end of history, and other ambiguous and imaginary concepts.
It is clear from these concepts and theories that most of them are aimed at the so-called Global South, including the Islamic and Arab world and particularly the Arab World because of the strength and antiquity of its civilization, its strategic position, and the richness of its interior.
For example, the concept of the Arab Spring refers to the Spring of Prague, the former capital of Czechoslovakia, when the Soviet army intervened to contain demonstrations in opposition to the regime in power at the time. The same theory was projected onto the Arab region and eliminated all those who opposed the Greater Middle East project or, in other words, domesticated Arab societies so that they would accept the values of Western civilization while obliterating and dismantling the noble values of Arab civilization and Arab culture.
The concept of soft power
Another no less controversial concept is that of “soft power”, which Joseph Nye of Harvard University defines as the ability to attract people to one’s side without coercion. However, the author of the theory did not specify the components, qualifications, and methods for using it in reality.
However, the indicators of soft power in the world have recently been identified through the qualifications of convergence, influence, fame, money and business, governance, international relations, culture, heritage, media and communication, education and science, people and values, sports and tourism. and other assets.
The countries were then ranked according to these indicators, and the United States came out on top, followed by Great Britain, Germany, China, Japan, France, Canada, Switzerland, Russia and Italy. There is no sign of any Islamic, Arab, or African countries because the rules of the game have already been set, and there is no need for a few Arab countries to boast or sing about Western values.
In fact, what matters to the West is the huge amounts of money flowing into its banks to stimulate its economy, as well as allowing this Arab money to invest in football stadiums. Also, they invest in football teams and other soft power skills with limited return and influence, instead of investing in the media, universities, institutes, and research centres in the so-called knowledge and intelligence economy.
Soft power: an iron fist in a silk glove
It turns out that the soft power that the West boasts about is really just a deception and an illusion used to lull, hypnotise and otherwise influence minds, feelings, and emotions. What is happening today in the wounded Gaza Strip in terms of ethnic cleansing and genocide, which are classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity, we see that Western countries are using the soft power of the media to legalize the obfuscation, disinformation, and demonization of the Palestinian resistance, and are adopting a witch-hunting method through a process of intimidation. Against all those who oppose their positions. The United States of America has long and extensive experience of using “hard power” or military force.
Since the end of the Second World War, it has endeavoured to use the tools and mechanisms of soft power, including diplomacy, the media, and other gentle and tactful methods, while at the same time providing military support to the Zionist entity through the presence of its fleet in the region, as is the case with Great Britain and other Western countries which give their absolute support; diplomatic and political support, in addition to military support for Tel Aviv
The Mask has fallen off
In the end, as the revolutionary Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish put it, the mask has fallen off and the vision and narrative have become clear: the West manufactures and promotes illusions, and certain manipulators in the Arab region digest and embody them.
But what we are seeing is that Western values are on the verge of extinction and disappearance because they have been incapable of preserving and guaranteeing the dignity of humanity and respect for the rules of justice, equity, equality, freedom of expression, and human rights that the West has advocated about for so long. So the emergence of new poles in the world is the logical result of the West’s recklessness in its tyranny and monopoly over rejected values that have lost their legitimacy and credibility.